Who wants to live forever?

Crufix Fondue said:
I would love to live forever. Although there is no feasible way to attain perfection, Havng an infinite life would be asymptiotic (is that a word?) Eternal life is as close to perfection as one can possibly get. I for one would have a grand old time in my ~15 Billion year life.

My only catch would be I no longer want to breathe, just so I could stay in space and not implode on myself....

I see now that we have defined these words. I would prefer to be IMMORTAL, as in, I cannot die. I know, that even if all life in the universe were to cease to exist, and the Universe did whatever it's going to do in the future, I still have my brain. and I can stay up in my imagination for eons, especially with all my accumulated knowledge/wealth/power/athletic ability/etc.
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Oh, come on, people. You all imagine "living forever" as some sort of dream retirement on Mount Olympus. What if life just goes on the way it is now? Imagine going to your job every day forever. No one likes their jobs THAT much.

Hell, I'm bored NOW. I can't imagine how bored I'd be after a few hundred years. What a great premise for a movie though: the immortal person, bored as Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, trying method after method of suicide, all doomed to failure...
 
Sundog, think about it and be honest please.

Wouldn't you want to be like this hero in the movie the "The Highlander" who found himself in different historical periods every other day?

Of course now that you have discovered that you are Welsh we will have difficulties in persuading you to get the sheeps out of your life... but hypothetically speaking...

Wouldn't be fascinating to find youself as a Holly Inquisitor the one day and the next date spending your time debating Religion and Paranormal on line?

:p:p:p:p:p
 
Cleopatra said:
Sundog, think about it and be honest please.

Wouldn't you want to be like this hero in the movie the "The Highlander" who found himself in different historical periods every other day?

Of course now that you have discovered that you are Welsh we will have difficulties in persuading you to get the sheeps out of your life... but hypothetically speaking...

Wouldn't be fascinating to find youself as a Holly Inquisitor the one day and the next date spending your time debating Religion and Paranormal on line?

:p:p:p:p:p
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Oh you bet. If I get godlike powers along with immortality, I wouldn't get bored.

But in the real world, it would just mean I'd have to sweat it out through an infinite number of more Republican administrations. I'd have an infinite number of children and forget all their birthdays. I'd drive away even MY wonderful wife after a few million years.

Naah. I'll take the cards I was dealt. ;)
 
Assuming that I become some kind of etheral being, that really has no way of interacting with the "real world," I really wouldn't have a problem living with eternity, especially if I get god-like powers. I don't personally believe there is a life after death, but then again you can't PROVE it so...Back to the point, if I had god-like powers, when I'm bored with this universe, I can just move on and creat another one. Hypothetically there are an infinate number of alternate universe types...so infinate number of universes infinate amount of time, seems to add up to me.
 
Forever?

I think that it would be better just to be able to stop at a certain point, say age 60, and then start over again at say 12, and just keep doing this over and over again.

I would like to see what happens if I made different decisions other than what I did.

Probably some of these lifetimes would turn out great, while others would probably stink.

But if I could freeze at the ripe old age of say, 25, that would be OK too.
 
So many people here keep bringing up all the downfalls of living forever - boredom being the worst of the lot, followed by boredom (or increasing dislike) for your spouse, your job, and your multitude of children, grandchildren, great, great, .... well, you get the picture.

I think we are all missing the forest for the trees here - what I mean is that there is ALREADY a large portion of our culture who firmly believe that they will live forever. (In an altered form).

You can imagine having it bad waiting for the heat death of the universe? Changing from one challanging job to another, going back to school (or other education) umpty-ump times?

That's nothing compared to a Christian in his afterlife. Long after God has wrapped up the universe the Christian soul will still be around, thinking up new ways to praise him. Geeze! I'ld rather spend a millenium flipping burgers!

As for school, learning new things, why bother? God has all the answers - just ask! What would it do to your psyche to know that the science you are trying so hard to learn is just a current fad to the all powerful tinker toy master. Even studying human psychology would be unfullfilling because your fellow humans are no mystery to him.

What kind of torture would you be in when you realize that no matter how much you learn and grow as an immortal soul, you will still amount to less than a nanofraction of a piss-ant to the all-knowing god.

Some non-believers think it would be a burden to live a mere couple millenia - pity the poor believer that is doomed to an infinite second life, with no ability to suicide.
 
Definately. The whole thing sounds preferable to the alternative and the universe being as big a place as it is, there will always be new things to discuss and learn about. I'd also love to see how mankind progressed throughout the centuries, or regressed perhaps?
 
If "living forever" means immortality (not being able to die) then it might be a horrible "experience".Living very long does not sound like a bad idea but I think living forever is something that an average person,not being able to think in "deep time",passes off as great.I think that to live forever is just as much a restraint as having to die fairly soon.
What are you going to do when you just do not want to live anymore? Having had a lot of depression in my life,the very thought of death has sometimes been the ultimate driving force that has kept me going.One thing that I have a problem with concerning death,anyway,is the inability to learn anymore.
Frequently I dream of time travel to the past,from era to era.As fascinating as the idea is,sometimes I feel that it flows all over me.It is so extremely hard a concept to digest with a human brain only,now what would eternity be like?
 
Approaching this question honestly forces me to admit that, on an emotional level, the thought of death scares me. All the rational thinking that I am capable of still leads to the conclusion that I really don't know anything. I believe some things to the point of virtual certainty, have great confidence in other things, have a measure of both faith and doubt in others things. Was it Socrates who said the highest form of wisdom is knowing that you don't know anything?

Knowing that I don't know what comes next is disquieting for me. My most basic response is to want to live forever and whimp out on the whole situation. Can anyone honestly say they don't have these thoughts from time to time?

I realize that I would appear to be a prime target for the fundies but that ain't gonna happen! I'm not about to start writing checks to Benny Hinn for a seat on the Rapture Express.

Approaching the immortality question logically brings up some interesting points.

The first question that comes to mind is: If there is never a time when I am not living, then how could I know that I am living now?

This may seem like a silly question, but let me run my logic and see if it makes sense.

It seems to be that we are aware of things only when they are referenced to something else. One example is the idea of up and down or left and right. If there was no up then it logically follows that there would be no down.
The direction up only exists when it is defined by comparing it to the direction down. Likewise, left and right
Each of these directions define one another and exist only because their opposites exist.Inside and outside are another example. Could you have an inside without an outside? Could you have a something without a nothing with which to compare it? Although these are all opposites, they appear to just be parts of the same thing. Like two sides to a coin. Two opposite sides but one coin.

Following this logic a bit further, and adding a temporal dimension, could you have a here now without a not here then?

This leads to the question: If you were never not living, how could you know that you were living now? Using the logic examples it seems that our awarness of being alive is defined by its opposite: Not being alive.

So, if being immortal means that its opposite (being dead) does not exist for you, then your immortality would be irrelevant since you would not be aware that you were alive. Let's put it this way: If at some time you were never cold and wet, you would not be aware of how good it feels to be warm and dry.

Does all this make sense or should I have my medication adjusted again?
 
It makes sense, but we're discussing a hypothetical here. I suppose if I, personally, were "immortal" the world would probably implode with me at its center. But, I'm not sure if logical paradoxes spell the end of the universe, like they do for robots.

Anyways, Stimpy put it forth the best way, but if I could live life for as long as I chose to, then I'd do it with the restrictions Yahweh put forth. I don't know if there will ever be a time when I'm tired of creating art though, I'd be able to create as many sensory universes as I chose to. Talk about god-like powers! :)
 
Rayn said:
It makes sense, but we're discussing a hypothetical here. I suppose if I, personally, were "immortal" the world would probably implode with me at its center. But, I'm not sure if logical paradoxes spell the end of the universe, like they do for robots.

Huh? Discussing a hypothetical means that it's ok to dismiss logic?

I would call that indulging in fantasy.

Why would immortality place you at the center of the Earth?
And, why would immortality cause the world to implode?
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Though experiment time:

I'm immortal.

What do I do? Hm.. First couple of years I guess I'll be touring around making appearences at various talk-shows and extreme-sport events. 'So how does it feel to be immortal?' 'Good thanks', 'Afraid of getting bored?' 'No, there's always something to do, I guess'.
After a few years of this, I get borded with the glamorous life of a celebrity and become a superhero thwarting evil schemes. After all, there is nothing the baddies can do to me, right?

And so a couple of (thousand? million?) years go by, I'm having a blast, though I miss having friends that stay around for more than a couple of decades. Then the sun explodes, eats up the earth, sucks most of the solar system in to it's middle, I'm very hot for a while, then everything grows dark as the sun cools down, and I'm stuck in the middle of a dead star. Great. And I can't die.

Maybe I won't pick immortality...
 
fishbait,

No, discussing a hypothetical does not mean we should discard logic, I was just trying to bring a little levity to the topic. In an episode of Futurama, logical paradoxes can destroy robots.

As for the world imploding with me at its center, I think that was just an extrapolation on that idea. If the universe could not stand a paradox, such as me being immortal, then it would cease to exist (if it were robot-like, I suppose), and since I cause it by becoming immortal, then I assume it would implode around me.

Anyways, it was just me running with a joke that I didn't state in my post, so it is quite obviously absurd and ridiculous. You can just ignore that post if you like. I still find it funny. Kinda.
 
Ah, levity! We don't have much of that around where I live. I was the last practitioner of irony until the bottom dropped out back in '85. Where I live, if you act dumb then you're treated as an equal. So, I act like a moron as much as possible and find that it can be quite relaxing.

I don't know from robots, but I do know all about chainsaws.

Regards, f
 
Ah, the Great Irony Depression of '85, what a sad time. The Satire Secession of '92 was a bit rough for me as well. Chainsaws and irony are a potent combination in the fight against solemn discussion. Fight the power!
 
Actually...

Actually I would prefer to get to live my own life over and over again until I got it right. Actually, people do get tired of life. As you get older and less well it becomes easier to imagine just ending it all. On the other hand, if you could be 18 forever that wouldn't be a bad deal.
 
Let's not forget Tithonus!

I'd want to live forever if I could drag others along with me!

-Elliot
 
PogoPedant said:
Though experiment time:

I'm immortal.

What do I do? Hm.. First couple of years I guess I'll be touring around making appearences at various talk-shows and extreme-sport events. 'So how does it feel to be immortal?' 'Good thanks', 'Afraid of getting bored?' 'No, there's always something to do, I guess'.
After a few years of this, I get borded with the glamorous life of a celebrity and become a superhero thwarting evil schemes. After all, there is nothing the baddies can do to me, right?

And so a couple of (thousand? million?) years go by, I'm having a blast, though I miss having friends that stay around for more than a couple of decades. Then the sun explodes, eats up the earth, sucks most of the solar system in to it's middle, I'm very hot for a while, then everything grows dark as the sun cools down, and I'm stuck in the middle of a dead star. Great. And I can't die.

Maybe I won't pick immortality...
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You would think that if you could live forever, after a billion years on Earth you would be able to figure out a means to get out of the solar system before the Sun expanded into it's giant phase!!
 
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